When the Blankets Are Pulled Away - Stories & Songs from Elizabeth Jane Lovely & Samana
Mooney's Mythic PodcastShow Notes
Host: Sarah Mooney, Storyteller Intro music by Queen Space Baroque Episode Overview A tender, vulnerable episode where Sarah acknowledges she doesn’t have the “spoons” to fully arrive this week. Instead of pushing through alone, she contradicts the belief that “only she can do it” by inviting beloved artists into the space - Elizabeth Jane Lovely shares a haunting story about ancestor statues, and Samana offers their transcendent song “Lakeside Song.” A beautiful meditation on asking for help and the power of community care. Featured Artists Elizabeth Jane Lovely - “The Ancestor Statues” Elizabeth Jane Lovely is an artist whose experimentation encompasses the written form, oral storytelling, ceremonial chant, and spell speaking through ritual interaction. She is a Creative Arts Doctoral Researcher at Loughborough University and an English Cunning Woman of sorts. Her specialisms centre around how we can cause kindly disruption through enchantment, the story as activist, the essentiality of our bodily state as gateway to sacred creativity, and everyday imagination as change maker. She currently lives in a tiny county that does not always exist, regularly having to negotiate with the brambles and briars to access the rest of the human world. Her story for this episode explores themes of colonization, the resilience of ancestral wisdom, and the journey from remembering to forgetting to remembering again. The ancestors - whether as statues, dust, or breath within us - remain patient witnesses to everything. Connect with Elizabeth Jane Lovely: * Website: www.elizabethjanelovely.com * Substack: thefaerytaleapothecary.substack.com * Featured in Season 1 of Moony’s Mythic Podcast Samana - “Lakeside Song” Samana was born in the heart of a vast, mountainous forest during a year-long odyssey that Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett embarked upon through the untamed wilderness and distant cities of Eastern Europe. As multi-disciplinary artists, Samana weaves together poetry, music, striking photography, and fine art into a single transformative and immersive experience. Every element of their work is crafted with ritualistic devotion, recorded in their analogue studio, The Road Records, and developed in the darkroom tucked away in the remote hills of Wales. Their music confronts the most profound aspects of the human condition, embracing both its weight and its transcendence. Oscillating between melancholic ballads and spiritual awakenings, Samana’s sound guides listeners through cinematic landscapes, invoking ancient beliefs, revolution, healing, the unseen, and the profound depths of love, loss, and death. “Lakeside Song” was composed by a lake that holds deep personal and spiritual significance for the band. This song emerges from a place of stillness and reverence, where the lake represents a threshold between the seen and the unseen, yearning and reflecting, serenity and infinity. Connect with Samana: * Website: www.samanaroad.com * Spotify: Samana on Spotify Key Themes * Asking for help - Contradicting the isolating belief that “only I can do this” * The blankets pulled away - Facing what we’ve been avoiding * Community as medicine - Being held by others’ art when we can’t hold ourselves * Sensory deprivation and earth connection - The power of returning to darkness and stillness * The art of letting go - As explored in Samana’s lyrics
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More from Mooney's Mythic Podcast
Show Notes Mooney’s Mythic Podcast: Under Anger, a Broken Heart . She spent one night at Wales Millennium Centre seeing Laurie Anderson, then sneaking in to see the Shovel Dance Collective, and she cried, giggled and danced her way through it. Laurie’s Friends and Teachers show leaves her with a teaching from Pema Chödrön: underneath anger there is always a broken heart. Sarah carries that question into the new story she’s making, about a great oak that splits into gardener, magician and king. She also lists her own shadow on a till receipt while working as the witch of Wookey Hole. Max Porter’s All of This Unreal Time and Robin Williamson’s bardic magic feed into the drunk, brilliant wizard she’s learning to embody. Featured * Laurie Anderson: Friends and Teachers, Llais Festival, Wales Millennium Centre. * Shovel Dance Collective: The Bold Fisherman shoveldancecollective.bandcamp.com * Robin Williamson: “Five Denials on Merlin’s Grave”, from A Glint at the Kindling (1979) * Max Porter: All of This Unreal Time * Direction support: Joanna Procter, Reveal Productions * Intro music: Queen Space Baroque Coming up * Friday 23 Oct, 6pm: a mythic storytelling show in the woods near Glastonbury (secret location) with musicians, fire and aerial acts. Get in touch to come. * Friday 30 Oct: Samhain Secrets and Songs with Ted Waters, St Benedict’s Church, Glastonbury.https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1998949432563?aff=oddtdtcreator * Women Who Run With the Wolves: a seven-week Tuesday-night circle in Glastonbury. Starts beginning of November 3 spaces left * One-to-one online sessions this winter for speeches, stories and performance. Support the pod on Patreon : Mooneys Mythic Podcast | Stories, soul craft, good company | Patreon
As autumn turns us down into the earth, this episode opens with a threshold track from Tarisha, then shares a treat from the archive: a conversation with Welsh storyteller Owen Staton. Together they explore unscripted telling, storytelling cards, letting a story “sing it plain,” and stories as nourishment and refuge. Owen StatonWelsh performance storyteller, actor and writer, host of Time Between Times.🎧 owenstaton.substack.com · Apple Podcasts🌐 www.welshstoryteller.com · ko-fi.com/owenstaton · patreon.com/owenstaton7 MusicIntro music: Ritual Door 2 Queen Space Baroque Opening track: Tarisha – Deep into the Earth we go, with thanks for permission Come and find me * 14 Oct – Story Wintering: Greek myths, beginning with Artemis * 23 Oct, 6–8pm – Once upon a… Forest: a mythic woodland trail near Glastonbury with circus, music and stories from the realms of the fey. The location is sent when you book. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/once-upon-a-forest-tickets-2002560757132 * 24 Oct – Wellington Garden of Light: oracle storytelling * 30 Oct, 7:30pm – Samhain Secrets in Story and Song with Ted Waters, St Benedict’s Church, Glastonbury. Bring an ancestor stone and photographs. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/samhain-secrets-in-story-and-song-tickets-1998949432563 * 3 Nov – Women Who Run with the Wolves: 7-week in-person circle, Glastonbury (a few spaces left) * 18 Dec – Festive family show with Sarah Curtis (harp and piano), St Benedict’s Church Next week: Laurie Anderson and the Shovel Dance Collective.Support the pod on Patreon, share it with a friend, or leave a comment 💛
Mooney’s Mythic Podcast Past the equinox, Sarah reflects on telling stories in the woods and the prayer she’ll make next time. She also talks about unwrapping a bubble-wrapped six-year-old part of herself, and joining the fierce Savage Sisters Morris side. In the story pot: The Princess’s Blankets and Tam Lin. Then a furious poem from Extinction Rebellion co-founder Stu Basden, recorded at the Green Gathering, and an invitation to come back to life together. Music: Queen Space Baroque, “Ritual Door” (opening titles) · Tarisha, “Deep Into the Earth” · Wyndreth, “My Mother’s Savage Daughter” Support Wyndreth: the writer of My Mother’s Savage Daughter is living with dementia. Please give if you can:👉 https://www.gofundme.com/f/my-mothers-savage-daughter-needs-our-help Come and join me: * 🌲 Mythic Wander, Friday 23rd October. Get in touch for the location. * 🐺 Women Who Run With the Wolves, Glastonbury, seven Tuesdays from 3rd November (I said the 2nd in the episode, but it’s Tuesday 3rd!) * 🕯️ Story Wintering, online, once a month
Opening music By Queen Space Baroque Online workshop Thursday 6:30–8:30pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1998740818593?aff=oddtdtcreator Samhain telling of Donkey Skin in Glastonbury, 30th Oct https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1998949432563?aff=oddtdtcreator
Sarah previews The Synthphonic Orchestra ahead of Friday’s Rose Concert, then reflects on cycles — vision quests, moon time, community rhythm — before telling a Loathly Lady tale: three princes, a dried well, and the old woman who asks only for a kiss. Music: The Synthphonic Orchestra, “Love Remains” Upcoming: Rose Concert (Fri 11th, Glastonbury Town Hall) · Autumn Threshold Gathering online, next Thurs, 2-for-1 tickets on Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1998740818593?aff=oddtdtcreator Women Who Run With the Wolves (Glastonbury, late Oct) · Greek myths (details soon) Loved this? Send it to one person who needs the story today. Keep the kettle on for the pod — Patreon (Mooney’s Mythic Podcast).